CHAMBERS'S

POCKET MISCELLANY.

OLD AND NEW TRAVELLING.

THIS little book is probably in the hands of a person who is carried along by railway at the rate of thirty to forty miles an hour; if by the Great Western Railway, the speed is most likely beyond this ordinary limit. Now we all know that any such marvellously-quick travelling is quite of recent date. Every man in middle-life has a vivid remembrance of the times when eight miles an hour by a stage-coach were considered a very fair thing, and so much as ten miles altogether a wonder. And so were either eight or ten miles an astonishing rapidity in comparison with the slow method of travelling that prevailed in the days of our grandfathers. Let us, while going along almost at the velocity of a whirlwind, recall a few curious particulars of travelling in the olden time.

The modes of travelling and conveyance generally were of a comparatively rude and primitive kind in Britain till the latter part of the seventeenth century; and anything like comfortable and quick travelling cannot be said to have been known till a century later, when mailcoaching was introduced. In old times, people of a humble

rank travelled only on foot, and those of a higher station on horseback. Noblemen and gentlemen, as much for ostentation as use, kept running footmen-a class of servants active in limb, who ran before them on a journey, or went upon errands of special import. The pedestrian powers of these footmen were often surprising. For instance, in the Duke of Lauderdale's house at Thirlstane, near Lauder, on the table-cloth being one morning laid for a large dinner-party, it was discovered that there was a deficiency of silver spoons. Instantly the footman was sent off to the duke's other seat of Lethington, near Haddington, fully seventeen miles off, and across hills and moors, for a supply of the necessary articles. He returned with a bundle of spoons in time for dinner. Again-at Hume Castle, in Berwickshire, the Earl of Home had one night given his footman a commission to proceed to Edinburgh-thirty-five miles off-in order to deliver a message of high political consequence. Next morning early, when his lordship entered the hall, he saw the man sleeping on a bench, and conceiving that he had neglected his duty, was about to commit some rash act, when the poor fellow awoke, and informed Lord Home that his commission had been executed, and that, having returned before his lordship was stirring, he had only taken leave to rest himself a little. The earl, equally astonished and gratified by the activity of his faithful vassal, rewarded him with a little piece of ground, which to this day bears the name of the Post Rig—a term equivalent to the postman's field, and an unquestionable proof, as all the villagers at Hume devoutly believe, of the truth of the anecdote. The custom of keeping a running footman did not cease amongst noble families in Scotland till the middle of the last century. The Earl of March, father to the late Duke of Queensberry, and who lived at Neidpath Castle near Peebles, had one named John Mann, who used to run in front of the carriage with a long staff. In the head of the staff there was a recess for a hard-boiled egg, such being the only food taken by Mann during a long journey.

When the matter of communication was of particular

importance, or required to be despatched to a considerable distance, horsemen were employed; and these, by means of relays of fresh animals and great toil of body, would proceed journeys of some hundreds of miles to accomplish what would now be much better done by a post-letter. Some journeys performed on horseback in former days would be considered wonderful even in modern times with good roads. Queen Elizabeth died at one o'clock of the morning of Thursday the 24th of March 1603. Between nine and ten Sir Robert Carey left London, after having been up all night, for the purpose of conveying the intelligence to her successor, James, at Edinburgh. That night he rode to Doncaster, 155 miles. Next night he reached Witherington, near Morpeth. Early on Saturday morning he proceeded by Norham across the Border; and that evening, at no late hour, kneeled beside the king's bed at Holyrood, and saluted him as King of England, France, and Ireland. He had thus travelled 400 miles in three days, resting during the two intermediate nights. But it must not be supposed that speed like this was attained on all occasions. At the commencement of the religious troubles in the reign of Charles I., when matters of the utmost importance were debated between the king and his northern subjects, it uniformly appears that a communication from Edinburgh to London, however pressing might be the occasion, was not answered in less than a fortnight. The crowds of nobles, clergymen, gentlemen, and burghers who at that time assembled in Edinburgh to concert measures for opposing the designs of the court, always dispersed back to their homes after despatching a message to King Charles, and assembled again a fortnight thereafter, in order to receive the reply and take such measures as it might call for. Even till the last century was pretty far advanced, the ordinary riding-post between London and Edinburgh regularly took a week to the journey.

In consequence of the inattention of our ancestors to roads, and the wretched state in which these were usually kept, it was long before coaching of any kind

came much into fashion. Though wheeled vehicles of various kinds were in use among the ancients, the close carriage or coach is of modern invention. The word coach is Hungarian, and the vehicle itself is supposed to have originated in Hungary. Germany certainly appears to have taken the precedence of the nations of Western Europe in using coaches. They were introduced thence into England some time in the sixteenth century, but were, after all, so little in vogue throughout the whole reign of Elizabeth, that there is no trace of her having ever used one. Lord Grey de Wilton, who died in 1593, introduced a coach into Ireland, the first ever used in that country. One was introduced into Scotland about the year 1571. The Duke of Buckingham, in 1619, first used a coach with six horses-a piece of pomp which the Duke of Northumberland thought proper to ridicule by setting up one with eight. Charles I. was the first British sovereign who had a state- carriage. Although Henri IV. was killed in a coach-the only one, by the way, he possessed-his ordinary way of appearing in the streets of Paris was on horseback, with a large cloak strapped on behind, to be used in case of rain. It is very curious to find that the same sort of complaints now made by persons interested in coaching respecting the introduction of steam locomotives, were made when coaches were introduced.

In a pamphlet called the Grand Concern of England explained,' published in 1673, the writer very gravely attempts to make out that the introduction of coaches was ruining the trade of England. The following is an example of his mode of reasoning:- Before the coaches were set up, travellers rode on horseback, and men had boots, spurs, saddles, bridles, saddle-cloths, and good riding-suits, coats and cloaks, stockings and hats, whereby the wool and leather of the kingdom were consumed. Besides, most gentlemen when they travelled on horseback used to ride with swords, belts, pistols, holsters, portmanteaus, and hat-cases, which in these coaches they have little or no occasion for. For when they rode on